Message From Administration

November 2017

The holidays remind me that there are many things to be grateful for, both professionally and personally. I am grateful for you - our employees, medical staff and volunteers. The work you do isn’t easy. It can be challenging and demanding as well as gratifying and inspirational. Every day we touch people’s lives – it may be as simple as helping a patient orvisitor find their way or as difficult as supporting a family through the loss of a loved one. It’s our teamwork, our support of one another that helps us move through each day, each situation, each patient and resident encounter.

Reflecting on the work we do is always special and for me personally, this year is especially significant. I would never have imagined that in my career in healthcare, we would have the opportunity to build a new hospital for our community. It’s an incredible gift that changes healthcare for you, our community and our future generations. While we have many more milestones to reach in this journey to create a new health system, moving forward with the site plan announcement and seeing the new energy and enthusiasm that our future vision is creating is exciting. I am grateful for the teams who have been spending countless hours designing the hospital from the inside out. Seeing you work together to design and eventually build a new healthcare delivery system for this community is humbling and inspiring. Thank you.

The new hospital project is just a part of what we do and in the coming months we will see new MVHS Medical Group sites open in Rome and Oneida. The Oneida site will also have a new outpatient dialysis location, filling a very big need for the Oneida community. This site will also include a St. Elizabeth Lab location. We continue to look for opportunities to expand care in areas that need our support.

We also have the upcoming vote by our respective medical staffs to approve a common set of bylaws for the providers who work in our system. This is a very important step as it continues to build and expand a cohesive medical staff. And it prepares us for 2022 when we will open the new hospital. We will be at one site, a site that will serve the needs of our entire region.

The days ahead will still have its challenges. We continue to experience an operating loss for the system. At the end of October, the year–to-date operating loss for the Mohawk Valley Health System was $3.4 million compared to a budgeted gain of $1.5 million. We are watching closely the many proposals for changes in reimbursement that are now in Congress and will continue working with and educating our legislative leaders as to what it will mean for healthcare both statewide and nationally. We are also developing new tactics in our recruitment efforts for medical staff, nursing and support staff. New interest in our organization from potential candidates is happening because of the new hospital opportunity.

Over the holidays many of us will have family and friends returning to the area. I encourage you to take the opportunity when you see them to talk about the future of healthcare that we are building. A new integrated healthcare system in Utica, New York – our Utica, New York – is beginning to take shape. Let’s take this time to be grateful for the opportunity and celebrate what the future will bring for all of us!